Eagle Scout gives disabled children a new library

Oct. 12, 2013

Jay Morey, 13, and his father, Peter Morey, with some books at St. Joseph Orphanage. / The Enquirer/Tony Jones

Short History
of St. Joseph Orphanage

St. Joseph Orphanage’s roots reach back to 1829, when four Sisters of Charity from Maryland opened the first orphanage for girls on Sycamore Street, Downtown. By 1905 it had moved to a larger facility in Northside and become co-educational, eventually housing 500 orphans. Operations moved again in 1962, to the 40-acre site in Green Township, and the orphanage began reforming programs over the next few decades because of societal changes concerning the care of orphans, including more government-funded children services programs, changes in fostering and adoption laws and community living. Today St. Joseph serves children in Hamilton, Butler and Montgomery counties, and runs offices in Fairfield, and Moraine, outside of Dayton. St. Joseph served 1,851 children in 2012.

sneak peek at library

Take a tour of St. Joseph Orphanage and see the new library space, at Cincinnati.com.

Make a Difference Day

When: Oct. 26 What: Make A Difference Day is the largest national day of community service. It is sponsored, along with Points of Light, by USA Weekend magazine, which, like The Enquirer, is owned by Gannett Co. Inc. Thousands of projects are planned each year involving corporations, communities, nonprofit organizations, states and individuals. Enquirer project: The Enquirer will create and furnish a library at St. Joseph Orphanage, 5400 Edalbert Drive, Cincinnati. Enquirer Media staff will install, shelve and catalog the 8,000 books collected and donated by Eagle Scout Jay Morey of Sycamore Township. How to help: Volunteer for a local project at http://makeadifference day.com.

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Books have always been accessible to the thousands of mentally and developmentally disabled children who have passed through St. Joseph Orphanage, but never like this.

Today, the children have access to a few hundred books, jammed into a storage closet off the stage in the gym. Soon, though, those books – and another 8,000 more – will line the shelves of a new library, the cornerstone of The Enquirer’s Make a Difference Day project Oct. 26.

The trove of literature once belonged to students at now-shuttered Central Fairmount School but was rescued by a 13-year-old boy from Montgomery, who decided he wanted to donate a library for his Eagle Scout service project.

“I don’t think the students quite understand how powerful that’s going to be,” St. Joseph Director of Education Sean Garner said of the library. “Reading ... is just a critical survival skill that our kids need ... and the behavioral problems that they have (create) a lot of academic gaps – in particular, reading.”

St. Joseph began caring for orphans more than 180 years ago, but today it is a full-service mental and developmental health facility, offering a myriad of programs for disabled children, some living at home with their parent or parents and others in custody of the government.

Providing them with a library – a quiet place to slip into new worlds and meet new people – will leave a lasting impression and provide an incentive for good behavior, administrators say.

Eighth-grader with big goals was happy to lend a hand

You could say Jay Morey, of Troop 672 based at All Saints Church in Sycamore Township, is a bit of an overachiever.

He set a goal to become an Eagle Scout before turning 13 – an accomplishment most scouts achieve at age 17 or 18 – and with the completion of the library project, he did it, three days before his birthday.

He’s already moved on to collecting Eagle Palms, merits that can be earned after reaching Eagle Scout status.

He’s not quite the youngest Eagle Scout ever – that scout was 12 years and 2 months old, Jay said – but the eighth-grader at All Saints School is happy to have helped children less fortunate than himself.

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Jay got the idea when he read about other scouts who had organized new libraries. Then he learned that Cincinnati Public Schools had recently sold several schools. He talked to the buyer of Central Fairmount on White Street in South Fairmount, who agreed to allow Jay to take the books inside.

“There are older ones in there, but they’re good books,” Jay said. “I recognized many of them.”

He tediously labeled each book, so St. Joseph can keep them in order, and passed on the card catalogs.

Jay and roughly 30 of his fellow scouts and their family members loaded the books into boxes and delivered them to St. Joseph Orphanage this summer.

Orphanage has cared for thousands of local children

St. Joseph officials are excited to see how the children will use the library and think it will be particularly beneficial for the small percentage of kids and teens who live there – those with the most severe disabilities or behavioral problems.

Many of the children read far below the expected reading level for their age.

“When all of the kids (in the day programs) leave, the (residential) kids have more freedom ... and free time on the weekends,” said Lisa Caminiti, public relations specialist for the school. “We hope it will become an exciting privilege to come up here, a destination away from the classrooms and their regular setting.”

The library will be constructed in a small classroom in a quiet wing of the building, and some of the books will go to the Altercrest facility near Coney Island in Anderson Township, where programs are held for older boys.

The shelves will be built and stocked on Oct. 26 – Make a Difference Day – by employees of Enquirer Media. ■